Month: November 2017

Baby Deux, Part 7: We Got a BFP!!!!!

That’s the acronym for BIG FAT POSITIVE in online fertility speak, which we’ve become pretty proficient in, lately.

Let me take a minute to have an appropriate freak-out: OMG!$l#@>$@#!!@! YOU GUYS! WE ARE ALMOST COMPLETELY SURE THAT SONA IS PREGNANT!!@#!@!#!

Okay, that’s better.

Here’s how it all went down:

Sona was inseminated on November 9th and again on November 10th. That meant that we could have done a reasonably reliable at-home pregnancy test as early as Thanksgiving–if not earlier. Her blood test at the fertility doc isn’t until tomorrow (20 days post IUI), and we knew we didn’t want to wait that long. However, we also didn’t want to ruin Thanksgiving with the news that she’s not pregnant, again, and we didn’t want to have to suffer through that news with family in town. So, we waited.

Then, unexpectedly, Sona’s grandmother passed away this past Wednesday. That meant that our plans to have Sona’s family come up for a Big Ole Family Holiday Weekend got cancelled, and Sona actually ended up taking the overnight Amtrak to Kentucky to be with her family, leaving a few hours after an early Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  It was another blow in what has already been a difficult year, and neither of us wanted to even think about doing a pregnancy test. Therefore, we planned to test when Sona got home on Sunday (yesterday).

I had a lot of anxiety about the test while Sona was gone. I was also worried that, with her traveling 16 hours in 3 days, getting relatively little sleep, and taking care of her family, she was going to push herself beyond her limit. I texted family to make sure that they kept an eye on her, and–she doesn’t know this (sorry, honey)–I also sent myself the contact info for on of the doctors she worked with, all with the plan to text her, plead our case, and beg for Sona to get an extra day off in lieu of the one she lost traveling for the funeral. I was a worried wife.

Yesterday, Sona got home at 9AM. We had brunch plans with friends who we only see once a year, as they live out of town. The babysitter came at 10:00. Sona was tired, and she hadn’t been home in a few days, but we wanted to push through with plans to see our friends, as we both needed some fun. I thought, for sure, that we would wait and do the test later in the evening–after brunch, after we’d rested a bit, and after Finn was in bed. I was hoping to push it off for as long as possible, scared of the result.

I was playing with Finn, trying to get him ready for the babysitter, when Sona got in the shower. Twenty minutes before the babysitter was set to arrive, I went into our bathroom to blow-dry my hair. I saw a cup of urine on the bathroom counter, and my heart stopped.

“You do it,” Sona said from inside of the shower. “Do what?!” I asked, knowing full-well what she meant.  “Do the pregnancy test. I didn’t want to do it without you.”

In my head, I was panicking. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I kept thinking. I wasn’t prepared, and I wasn’t ready to see Sona’s heart broken, again.

Still, I did it. I took the test, held it in the urine for 5 seconds (Sona made sure I read the directions, even though we’ve done this a thousand times, now), and I didn’t even get it out of the urine before the two dark pink lines appeared. Meanwhile, Sona was in the shower, expecting to wait a few minutes for the results.

So, I did exactly what I did when we tested for Finn. I coyly snuck away, pretending I was buying time, grabbed my phone, and came back in. I hid the phone behind my back, because I knew if she saw it, she’d know the test was positive.

Then, I put on my best sad face, lowered my tone, and said, disappointingly, “I’m sorry babe, it is negative. I knew we shouldn’t have tested. This is going to ruin the whole day.” “I knew it,” she said. “I figured it would be.”

This is what happened next:

(Trying to get a SFW video of your wife who is freaking out IN THE SHOWER is not easy,  people.)

As you can tell, I think, she totally fell for my prank.

She was elated. And relieved. And then, she just cried.

It was a special moment, and–you know me–I had to capture it. THERE WAS SO MUCH RELIEF, THERE.

Of course, we had to take a couple selfies, too, and I couldn’t love them more.

Yes, the lighting stinks. Yes, one of us is naked and half-covered in soap. Still, I can’t wait to show these two baby #2 someday and say, “See, this is how badly we wished for you.”

The funny thing is, this is almost exactly the week we found out we were pregnant with Finn, who was also a Thanksgiving baby. And, if all goes well, baby #2 will likely be due in August, too.

Of course, we have to be cautious. It’s early. VERY, very early. At first, too, we were worried about the chance of a false positive, as Sona did an HCG trigger shot. Those worries have been pretty much dispelled, though, as we’ve heard from several reliable sources that we are way beyond the window of concern.

But also, with Finn, we waited the requisite 3 months to announce widely. We waited about 3 minutes, this time. Is that risky? Of course. Are there superstitious folks out there, wagging fingers at us? For sure. Is there a chance that this pregnancy won’t stick? Sadly, yes.

But regardless of the outcome, we’ve committed to sharing our journey, and this is a huge part of it. Whatever comes next, we’re committed to sharing that, too. There is NO SHAME here, people. NONE. NO shame in trying to conceive. NO shame in being a same-sex couple, haphazardly navigating these often enigmatic waters. NO shame in fertility struggles. NO shame in whatever comes next.

Today, though, there is a lot of joy.  And that’s what we are choosing to focus on. Today, at the end of a very rough year, there’s joy–all thanks to the promise of another sweet, sweet soul.

A Letter to Ourselves (Before Kids)

Dear Sona and Danielle:

When I think of you now, remembering you at your best, I’m thinking of the year 2013. You’d been married for a year, together for 12. You were had just started your thirties. Danielle had just landed the tenure-track job she’d always wanted, and Sona was about to get leave a mediocre job and become part of an anesthesia practice where she would feel at home.

It was a good year. You were happy.

You spent most of your free time enjoying the city, meeting friends for ridiculously-priced drinks, wandering aimlessly through neighborhoods, eating too many nice meals. (I think that was the year you decided to eat through the entire Michelin list.)  You were at that sweet spot: fresh into careers that afforded you these luxuries but without many other responsibilities. No house. No fertility bills. No toddler.

That year, you continued what was a multi-year travel spree. You went on some small, stateside trips: Charleston, Hilton Head, Baltimore. But you also went to Mexico, Spain, and Costa Rica. Those last two still go down in the books as your favorite trips you’ve ever taken.

Barcelona was particularly special. You’d gone for your one year wedding anniversary.

There, you were your best selves. You wandered. You ate. You laughed. You relaxed.

You had the best meal–and most romantic night–of your lives. You still talk about it, today.

That year showed you the promise of what adult life together would be like. That year glimmered.

Fast forward four years, and pretty much everything has changed. Fancy dinners are few and far between (and dependent on the babysitter’s schedule). You feel guilty when you spend too much money on artisanal cocktails, now (which, honestly, are admittedly obnoxious). And your travel schedule–which was your lifeline in an otherwise busy life–has been sacrificed to fertility clinic bills and home repairs and fender benders. This year has not always glimmered.

Whereas you used to spend Sundays in bed, eating a too-late brunch, binging too many TV shows, and napping for too long, you’re now usually up by 8AM. You’re awakened by your son, who is shouting “Hey, Mommmmmaaaaaa!” from the room next door. You get up, you warm some milk, and you pull him into bed, hoping that he’ll quietly watch the iPad while you both steal a few more minutes of sleep. (You feel guilty about all of that screen time, later.)

You are tired. Your face, I’m sorry to say, is showing wear. There are creams for those dark circles, but you don’t really have the time to consider them, now. You spend a lot of time thinking about 2013–and all of those other years before–and you feel defeated more often than you want to admit.

When you do get the chance to steal some alone time, you hardly know what to do with yourselves. Do you have the serious talks about money or relationship kinks or any other of the other things that have been swept under the rug while you are busy building train tracks and cleaning up fingerpaint? You probably shouldn’t, but you probably do. You probably find that it is hard to be those people you were four years ago, and you probably give yourself a hard time about that. You probably over-think it. You probably have concerns. You probably have regrets.

But then, there’s this: It’s a detail you’ve forgotten in the midst of all that idealized nostalgia. You did spend Sundays in bed. You did binge a whole season of a show, take naps, and feed bacon to the cats. But you also wished. You lazed in bed, curled up around each other like commas, and you talked excitedly about the day when a little boy would nestle between you. That was the vision you had for what your future would be: three of you in bed, curled up around each other, you two looking at each other over the downy head of a baby.

This is all to say that I see you. You are not lost. You have not disappeared. I see the 2013 you, wanting desperately to be reignited. I see the 2017 you, struggling. I also see the little boy between you, and I want you to remember, always: you got just what you wished for. You got what you wanted. And you did it together.

You have  that little boy, and you love him to the point of madness, even when you’re tired. Even when you ask him to clean up his blocks and he replies, confidently, “Nope!” Even when you feel pushed and stretched and depleted. Even then.

So, please be kind to yourselves. Be generous with each other. This isn’t 2013, but this is, in its own way, every bit as good. (And maybe even better.)

Baby Deux, Part 6 :: Sperm Banks and Night Sweats–Oh My!

Well, Sona is deep in the midst of night sweats. You know what that means: Cloooooooomiiiiiiiiiiiid! (In my head, I said that in Oprah’s voice.)

(photos from when we had our last getaway–to NOLA–before Finn was born)

She went in for a water ultrasound last Thursday. That was the one where they checked to ensure that there weren’t any physiological anomalies preventing pregnancy: scar tissue, polyps, etc. Luckily, everything looked good! So, the doc called in prescriptions for Clomid and Progesterone (Sona’s was a bit lower than they’d like to see).

We were a little stressed about the timing, per usual, because after asking around, it seemed like a lot of women had started Clomid much sooner. The general consensus was that most started between CD3 (cycle day)-CD5. Sona was on CD8. However, her cycles are irregular and generally longer than 28 days. Therefore, we’re hoping that her CD8 is kind of like other folk’s CD5. And the doc was still insistent that the timing is good, as Sona usually ovulates between CD 15-19.

Anyway, I went to Walgreens to pick up the prescriptions having NO idea what they would cost without insurance. I think we were both expecting a bill of around $200, but it was only $30. That may be the only time in this whole process when we’re surprised by how cheap something is.

Enter, our sperm bank order history:

That doesn’t even include our most recent order, which was placed on Sunday night. Two vials. $1900. I would total it up for you all, but then I might have to throw my laptop against the wall. So, you do the math.

I don’t know what our donor’s name is–and, of course, I feel like we owe him our lives–but I sure hope he’s out there somewhere, driving a Tesla, living his best life.

(If you are new to us and haven’t read about how we chose our donor, you can catch up on that story here.)

While we’re talking money, we also got our first bill from our fertility clinic. They waste NO time. I mean, I think they stamped that shit as we walked out the door. Ah, well. Can’t blame them. The hustle is real.

This is all to say that we are hopefully set for a couple of inseminations before the week ends. Tomorrow morning, Sona goes in for the ultrasound to see how her follicles are maturing and how large they are. Depending on what they find, she will do the HCG trigger shot tomorrow night, which should prompt ovulation.

(Remember, the doc wants to see at least one follicle that is 18mm. The bigger it is, the closer Sona is to ovulating. If it’s so big that it looks like she’s ready to go, they may have her trigger Wednesday morning, instead. If she has a few that are large, which happens with Clomid, they will let us know that there is a high risk for multiples and ask us whether, knowing that info, we want to move forward with insemination this month. After that, I’ll begin drinking. Like A LOT.)

The next question is: how soon after the trigger shot do we do insemination #1? Since we’ve basically been crowd sourcing this whole pregnancy, I asked that question on Instagram, trying to get a sense of what others did. We got lots of responses that generally ranged from 24-36 hours, but 36 hours seemed to be the more popular answer–and the one that resulted in a lot of pregnancies. That timing is our biggest source of stress, just as it was before we were working with the fertility clinic. What if Sona ovulates right away and we miss the window, essentially wasting $1200 worth of IUIs and $1900 worth of sperm? Sona is going to grill the doc about this at tomorrow’s ultrasound, and they will make the decision about when to trigger based on the status of the follicles.

So, we’ll do the first IUI within that 24-36 hour window and the other around 12 -24 hours later. I’m unclear about whether or not they do another ultrasound in that time period, but I don’t think they plan to. It just seems like it’d make sense to check to see whether ovulation has actually occurred before moving forward with the second IUI, but I’ll try to trust that the experts know what they are doing.

Everyone keeps reminding us that this isn’t an exact science and that, even with thousands of dollars worth of fertility clinic bills and ultrasounds galore and hormone-altering medications, it is still just a guessing game. That’s pretty infuriating. Nature: 1; Science: 0.

The truth is this: we are going all in on this month. We’re spending around $4,000 (after having already spent thousands more). We’re committing to numerous trips to the fertility clinic, making Sona late to work several days throughout the process. We’re doing two inseminations to increase our chances. We chose to jump straight to meds, even though we had the option not to. We are playing every single card.

Of course, what that also means is that we are 100x more invested in this month’s IUIs resulting in a successful pregnancy. We are terrified of it not working and of having to go through this indefinitely. We are well aware that, while our fertility clinic could afford to have us go through this process for months and months, our bank account and our hearts could not. There are some things that have definite boundaries and breaking points, and we are hoping that we won’t have to experience a breach.

The amount of stress and anxiety–most of which is internalized–can’t be quantified.  There some debts that haunt you in ways that financial troubles can’t. We are doing everything in our power to make our family of three a family of four. But only so much is in our power.

Halloween 2017 :: A Photo Dump, Mostly

After a pretty good run, I’ve been a bad blogger this week. Between Halloween and a recent diagnosis of walking pneumonia for little Finn (which Sona and I likely have, too), it’s been a busy one.

Still, I wanted to take some time to share a bunch of photos from our Halloween festivities. I’m always pretty pumped about the holidays, but I was uber jazzed about Halloween this year. Finn seemed to be into it, himself, which made it all the more exciting. Last year, I’m pretty sure he had NO idea what was going on. Which is maybe why he looked like this the whole time:

This year, though, we’d been reviewing the trick-or-treating protocol for at least a month, and he’d picked out a costume in early September. “What do you want to be for Halloween?” I asked. “A fireman!” he said. That answer also sometimes changed to a “fireman shark,” which I really fought for, but he refused to wear the shark mask under his fireman hat. Oh, well. Can’t win them all.

We’d been painting pumpkins for a good week before we decided to carve them.

“I don’t eat it,” he said when dipping his finger into the paint. (Saying “I don’t _________________.” is his new thing. “I don’t hit mommy.” “I don’t eat PlayDoh.” “I don’t cry at doctor.”)

The Friday before Halloween, we tried to do a family carving session. It quickly became clear that: 1. Two year olds don’t have the patience for that activity. 2. It probably wasn’t a good idea to bring out a ton of toddler-sized knives around Finn.

So, we quickly took the knives away from him and exchanged them for more paint.

Meanwhile, Sona became laser-focused on completing one of the most difficult pumpkin patterns. (This was an exercise in our individual personalities.)

I carved a spider, by request. Finn still insists he did it. Yeah, okay kid.

Eventually, we just let him watch YouTube videos and eat brownies while we finished.

He was still pretty impressed with the results. For like 45 seconds.

Saturday morning, our neighborhood held all of their yearly Halloween festivities: a block party, a costume parade, a fall fest at the large garden center, and trick-or-treating along the main stretch of shops. Have I mentioned how much I love our ‘hood?

It was really cold–like 40 degrees–but Finn’s costume allowed for lots of layering. So, we toughed it out.

Honestly, I’m just amazed that he actually WORE his costume without a fight. He’s not a dress-up kind of kid, and we were worried he wouldn’t want to keep it on.

Right as the parade kicked off, Finn got a huge surprise: Mimi and Pops showed up! He was so happy.

We paraded to the garden center, where we enjoyed a maze, some photo-ops, a petting zoo, and pony rides.

There was also a SUPER CREEPY clown. How did Finn not run away screaming? I have no idea.

 

By the time we got to trick-or-treating, we’d already been out in the cold for over an hour. Still, Finn wanted to keep going. MUST. GET. ALL. THE. CANDY.

One thing was the same as last year: he ate candy the entire time, especially suckers.

On Halloween, we started with an afternoon party at his daycare. This is Finn and his BFF, Darcy.

She’s the kind of woman I want to be when I grow up.

Then, we went home to trick-or-treat through our neighborhood, which is always regarded as one of the best trick-or-treating spots around. It was even colder than the weekend–like 39 degrees–but we bundled up.

Sona and I had to join in on the fun. #squad

Mimi and Pops joined in, too.

By the time we were done, Finn was OVER IT. He was freezing cold, tired, over-hungry, and, apparently, brewing a case of pneumonia. Even still, we had such a good few days of fun, and I’m already excited about next year.

In the shower that night, Finn said “Next time, GORILLA!”